“Sustainable,” is the new sexy when it comes to the wine industry, with “Certified Organic,” “B Corporation,” and “Biodynamic,” acting as designer labels for vintners’ creations.
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Sam Jones | Napa Valley Register
“Sustainable,” is the new sexy when it comes to the wine industry, with “Certified Organic,” “B Corporation,” and “Biodynamic,” acting as designer labels for vintners’ creations.
For Spottswoode Estate Vineyard and Winery in St. Helena, this go-for-the-green mentality encouraged the company to invest a whole bunch of time, energy and money to pursue all of these certifications, including biodynamic “Demeter,” credentials.
“The goals of all of them are great, but there’s not a lot of overlap,” said Spottswoode’s winemaker and vineyard manager, Aron Weinkauf.
Spottswoode earned its organic certification in 1992, acting as an early adopter alongside one other vineyard in Napa Valley. Weinkauf’s predecessor and his crew then started farming biodynamically “loosely” in 2008, and after Weinkauf joined in 2015, the winery ultimately got its Demeter certification in 2020. The company is also certified with the local program Napa Green, and is currently pursuing a “TRUE” zero waste designation.
But as a lesser-known certification program compared to the others, the idea of biodynamic agriculture is not well understood.
In the case of Weinkauf and Spottswoode, he said that day-to-day operations did not differ much between organic and biodynamic farming.
“Within the Demeter certification, in order to be certified you have to have your organic certification already, so I kind of look at that as that does a whole lot of the footwork already,” said Weinkauf. “And then on top of that, it’s kind of just a mental shift … It doesn’t need to radically change what somebody who’s already farming organically does.”
About Napa Green: The Napa Green 501c3 is a global leader in sustainable winegrowing, setting the highest bar for sustainability and climate action in the wine industry. Napa Green facilitates whole system soil to bottle certification for wineries and vineyards, and provides the expertise, boots-on-the-ground support, and resources to continually improve. Learn more at https://napagreen.org/participating-members/.
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➡️ ticket link in bio!
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➡️ Link in bio.
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➡️ Ticket link in bio.
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